"This Old Heart of Mine"

Recently, I re-watched the Zombies' performance of "This Old Heart of Mine" (mislabelled as "I Love You") in France in 1966:

For the first time, I noticed that Paul Atkinson is using a bit of vibrato.

More significantly, I realized that there's a similarity between "This Old Heart of Mine" and "Whenever You're Ready" in that - unless I'm mistaken - the guitar parts in both feature pairs of notes an octave apart.

According to the Zombie Heaven booklet, "Whenever You're Ready" pre-dates "This Old Heart of Mine."  A demo was recorded "April or June 1965," and the released version was recorded on 24 June 1965.  According to the chronology in the booklet, this television appearance (on Dents De Lait Dents De Loups) was on either 29 or 30 October 1966, and the liner notes of The BBC Radio Sessions add that the Zombies recorded further live versions of "This Old Heart of Mine" on 1 November 1966 and 10 October 1967.

The liner notes of both Zombie Heaven and The BBC Radio Sessions seem to indicate that the Zombies used the Isley Brothers' version of the song as a basis for their cover.  I hadn't heard it before, but I found it on YouTube (here's a link to the official lyric video).  It doesn't have these octave pairs (not on guitar, at least), so it seems that this is something that the Zombies added to the song, re-using an element from "Whenever You're Ready."

"This Old Heart of Mine"

I recently listened to some live versions of "This Old Heart of Mine" and noticed two small things.

"Away" in the line "Each time you break away" is sung with a melisma (B B A), musically giving a sense of movement.  (Note that this is only in the version recorded on 1 November 1966 for Saturday Club [track 26 on disc 4 of Zombie Heaven, track 13 on disc 2 of The BBC Radio Sessions]).

The second "more" in the line "Hurting me more and more" is also sung with a melisma (E F#), musically giving a sense of the growing amount.

Saturday Club

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Verulam Cover Project:

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (1 November 1966), the Zombies recorded "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," "Goin' out of My Head," and "This Old Heart of Mine" for "Saturday Club."  The show was broadcast on 5 November.

Saturday Club

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (1 November 1966), the Zombies recorded "Gotta Get a Hold of Myself," "Goin' out of My Head," and "This Old Heart of Mine" for "Saturday Club."  The show was broadcast on 5 November.

"This Old Heart of Mine"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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When I made a page of the recording dates recently, I realized that I'd never recorded the guitar part from "This Old Heart of Mine," which I know part of.  (Actually, I realized that I'd never written about it at all.)

I intended to record what I know of it to-day, but I wanted to practice it a bit more first.  I referenced the video of the Zombies performing it in France and noticed that Paul Atkinson is playing the guitar part in octaves.  It's sort of visible here (but obviously more apparent in the original video):

This is a pair of C#s.

The thing is: in practicing it in octaves, I developed a blister on my finger, so actually recording this will have to wait awhile.  I'm still stuck on the bridges too; I know only the verses, and it will probably be underwhelming when I eventually get to it.